Switching electricity supplier could shave pounds off your bills. But it’s not always about how much hard cash you could save. You might be fed up with poor customer service, you might want greater visibility of your usage through an app or you might want to choose your supplier based on their green credentials, or whether they supply a smart meter.
In deregulated states, electricity providers simply can't do business like that because consumers like you are demanding energy from renewable sources. Threats of global warming are too terrible to be irresponsible with our energy sources anymore. As a result, each electric company is pushing forward to find renewable energy sources that are cheaper, cleaner, and more reliable than older forms of energy.
Energy Ogre: Grab a recent electric bill and head to www.energyogre.com. Enter some basic information from your bill and within minutes, Energy Ogre lets you know if it can save you money. If it can, you pay the company for one year, either $10 a month or $120 up front. Once you sign up, the company keeps looking at energy plans to make sure you're always getting the lowest rate possible. When you sign up with Energy Ogre, your electric bill and the $10 monthly fee is set on auto-pay so you don't have to worry about remembering to pay each month. More info

Energy sellers must provide collateral to ERCOT to cover expected future costs of buying wholesale electricity and if the companies don’t have enough capital, they get shut down. Breeze Energy, a Dallas-based electricity retailer that sold wind-energy plans to 9,800 customers including many in the Houston area, got caught in that financial squeeze when it defaulted on its collateral obligations.

Business specialists say that retail electricity companies follow a model used in other mature industries, such as banking, cell phone services and cable television, where the market is saturated and the main way to grow is by poaching customers from competitors. In all these industries, companies use cut-rate promotional offers to win customers and then hope inertia sets in once promotions expire and prices increase.
Texas deregulated most of the state's electricity markets in 2002, a move aimed at lowering electricity costs by letting consumers choose their own electric power providers and their own plans. Some parts of Texas continued to be regulated, including those that get power from municipal utilities, electric cooperatives and investor-owned utilities that operate outside the state's primary power grid.
Electric companies buy longer-term contracts so they can hedge their risks when they’re selling long-term electricity plans. Just a week ago, it looked as if wholesale prices would be as high as Texas has seen in the past 15 years, said Ned Ross, director of governmental affairs for Direct Energy, the third biggest seller of electricity in Texas, behind No. 1 NRG and No. 2 TXU. Future prices have retreated recently, but companies buying power for August are still paying at least double what they paid a year ago, according to data from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, which oversees the state’s power markets.
*Save Over £390 - Over 10% of the estimated quotations raised by users of the Simply Switch Website to switch their gas and electricity suppliers between 01/02/2015 - 01/06/2015 produced a predicted annual saving of £390 or more. Current combined spend for gas and electricity of between £84 and £6869. Savings may have included Direct Debit and online discounts. Energy prices vary by usage and postcode.
Electricity or Gas Supplier License/Order #s: CA 1359, CTA0006, CTA0032; CT 01-06, 06-07-11, 06-02-17; DE 00-162; DC GA2012-12, GA06-2, EA01-5, GA 11-5, EA 06-5-4, GA03-5; GA GM-46; IL 02-0489, 03-0320, 16-0205,17-0330, 07-0498; IA G-0010; ME 2000-989, 2002-64; MD IR-3645, IR-655, IR-311, IR-500, IR-3644, IR-228; MA GS-053, GS-030, CS-015, CS-045; MI U-14066, U-14867, U-13660, U-13245; NE NG-0043; NH DM 17-024; NJ GSL-0074, GSL-0101, ESL-0016, ESL-0066, GSL-0132, GSL-0099, GSL-0150, ESL-0171; OH, 09-153G, 00-003E, 00-013E; OR ES4 (12-162); PA A-2016-2542899, A-125095, A-110036, A-2016-2547424, A-110110; RI 2379(Z1), D-96-6(E); TX 10014; VA G-26, G-34, G-36, G-51, E-11A
Texas deregulated most of the state's electricity markets in 2002, a move aimed at lowering electricity costs by letting consumers choose their own electric power providers and their own plans. Some parts of Texas continued to be regulated, including those that get power from municipal utilities, electric cooperatives and investor-owned utilities that operate outside the state's primary power grid.
2of 3Cattle roam on a mesa near Iraan, Texas on the site of the Desert Sky Wind Farm. According to website Desert Sky Wind Farm® is a 160.5-megawatt (160,500-kilowatt) wind power generation facility located near the far West Texas town of Iraan, in Pecos County. The site includes 107 turbines, each rated at 1.5 megawatts (1,500 kilowatts) spread over a 15-square-mile area on Indian Mesa.Photo: John Davenport, Staff / San Antonio Express-News
Whether you live in a large city or small town, we can save you money! Where do we provide Texas electricity? We service customers in more than 400 deregulated communities in Texas. We work with principal utilities throughout the state of Texas to provide prepaid electricity. The utilities are: Oncor in the Dallas / Fort Worth Metroplex and various parts of West Texas; CenterPoint Energy in Houston and the surrounding areas; AEP Central in Corpus Christi and surrounding areas; AEP North in Abilene and other North Texas communities.